ANKARA - Patriot missile defense systems from the Netherlands are being unloaded from a ship in ?Iskenderun Port of southern Turkey early Monday morning, private Dogan news agency reported.
The ship carrying the Netherlands' Patriot missile defense systems arrived at the Iskenderun Port in Hatay province on Sunday evening and the missile systems started to be unloaded from the ship early Monday morning, according to the report.
Under Turkish request from NATO, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands will respectively deploy two Patriot batteries in Turkey's southern and southeastern regions, aiming to boost Turkey 's air defense capabilities from any airborne attack from neighboring Syria.
In last June, Syria reportedly shot down a Turkish warplane in the Mediterranean Sea, killing two crew members.
Turkey and the three members of the alliance are having talks for drafting a memorandum of understanding that will outline responsibilities of the parties, including the costs of operating the systems.
Hundreds of German, Dutch and the US military personnel will be deployed in southern Turkey to operate the Patriot systems and batteries will be deployed in Kahramanmaras, Adana and Gaziantep, respectively.
The US military personnel and equipment arrived last week at the Incirlik Air Base, and the German Patriot systems are expected in Turkey's Iskenderun port on January 21 as well as the Dutch systems on January 22.
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